Last year there was an onion crisis here in the north which saw onion producers losing millions of dollars. It soon became a blame game between the Chairman of the Belize Marketing and Development Corporation, Roque Mai and the producers but at the end of the day no assistance was given to those most affected. Today, those same onion producers are facing yet another problem. Early this morning we visited potato producers in the Village of San Carlos, who told us that if they don’t speak out, hundreds of pounds of harvested potatoes will rot in the fields.

Hipolito Novelo-Reporting

Bright and early this morning we found ourselves in the middle of a potato plantation where we witnessed the difficult labour that these potato producers from the Village of San Carlos have to go through in order to harvest their product.

But today these men and women are worried because their livelihood is being threatened. These potato producers are concerned with the fact they have not been able to sell their produce due to the alleged importation of Mexican Potatoes which they say is causing a dent in their livelihood.

For 48 year old Israel Hernandez, his daily routine for the past four years has been waking up at dawn an toiling the soil in order to harvest a product of high quality, but this morning he express to us that he is not happy with what is going on.

For every acre of land, Hernandez harvests approximately 3 thousand pounds of potatoes which he sells for 75 to 80 cents per pound. But with Mexican Potato in the market, Hernandez says it’s become difficult for him and other producers to sell their product. This has put a hurt on their investment.

Not far from Hernandez’s plantation we found another potato producer hard at work. Fifty two year old Guillermo Ramos has invested approximately $2,000 in his plantation; money which he says will be difficult to recover.

But when we contacted the chairman of BMDC, Roque Mai, he assured us that BMDC does not import potatoes and added that if Mexican Potato is being sold in the local market it probably was brought into the country illegally. Sounds like an explanation onion producers have heard before.

As mentioned at the top of the newscast hundreds of thousands of pounds of onion spoiled in the fields last year due to the same problem. Of note also is that at the end of last year, the country’s largest rice producer closed down for business due to the same problem of importation and contraband.